


More Than a Trim

by yikesola



Series: Commissions [11]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2020, COVID-19, Established Relationship, M/M, mentioned bc of lockdown haircuts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:33:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24591598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesola/pseuds/yikesola
Summary: Phil is an adult. He can make these unfathomable aesthetic choices all he likes. And Dan can hide upstairs until the destruction of long locks he loves to run his fingers through is over.A fic about haircuts and stepping back.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Series: Commissions [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1469918
Comments: 24
Kudos: 105





	More Than a Trim

**Author's Note:**

> This was a commissioned piece for [indistinct-echo](http://indistinct-echo.tumblr.com/) 💞

Dan knew it was gonna be a bad idea. 

A great video, but a very bad idea. 

He knew that Phil wasn’t gonna bother with even skimming through a tutorial, or stop to take a breath after the first scary chop and just keep cutting with shaking anxious hands. He considers it a small win that he convinced Phil to put down the kitchen scissors and at least get some proper equipment. He just doesn’t think it made much of a difference. 

There hadn’t been any fear when Phil impulse-bought hair dye. He already knows Phil looks good with dark hair, and the blue is an exciting difference to look forward to when they sit on their balcony and the sun hits just right. 

But a cut is different. 

A cut could look bad afterwards. 

Dan isn’t proud of that thought when it occurs to him. A cut could look bad and make Phil look bad, and there’s some old unexamined squirm in his stomach at the idea of that. At the idea of Phil, or by extension him, not fitting some mould. 

At the idea of Phil answering the door for takeout in his emoji pyjama pants and some god awful patterned shirt and a patchy botched haircut. And what this random stranger would think about him. Think about _them_. 

Yeah, Dan’s not remotely proud of that thought. But he still thinks it. 

And he still thinks that he has some growing to do, some comfort to learn. It’s not like he and Phil have always been perfectly aesthetic. The memories of square hair haunt him to this day… it’s not the worst thing in the world for his boyfriend to give himself a bad haircut. Especially not this world, with so much genuine bad happening by the minute. Who is he to tell Phil not to indulge in something? They’re on lockdown anyway, who’s really going to see them? Other than the internet, of course. 

*

When the Amazon packages arrive, Dan knows the butchering— as they’ve taken to calling it, Phil laughingly and Dan with dread— is close at hand. 

“Should I even touch the quiff?” Phil asks before bed, fiddling with it in the mirror in the last moments before he takes his contacts out and switches to glasses. 

“What, buzzed sides and a really long quiff?” Dan laughs, though he’s terrified Phil might actually do it. 

“Yeah, like an interpretation of a mohawk?” 

Dan doesn’t say anything. He just rolls his eyes and Phil laughs and he’s glad he successfully navigated the minefield one more time. He just doesn’t want to be the spoilsport to tell Phil not to cut his hair now that Phil’s excited to do it. He doesn’t want to be that asshole telling his boyfriend what he can and can’t do with his own fucking hair. 

“I _could_ go full Seth Everman,” Phil says after plopping onto the bed face-first. 

“You… could…” Dan really, really hopes that’s a joke. 

“But then everyone would see how weirdly shaped my head is.” 

“Because they don’t already?” 

They’re both laughing. The laughter helps. It reminds Dan that none of this matters, really. It’s just hair. It grows back. No matter what Phil’s about to do to it in the morning. 

*

“Good luck,” Dan says as Phil with hands full of clippers and scissors makes his way to his filming setup. He hopes he has a convincing smile on. He knows if Phil asked even now if this was a good idea, he’d want to tell him no. 

And it’s dumb. He _knows_ it’s dumb! But he wouldn’t fucking dream of someone who didn’t actually know what they were doing cutting his own curly mop. Lockdown or no, he’ll plonk a hat on until he can see someone with training. Phil’s past the point of caring. He says he has a full dog on his head and people in uni used to give themselves haircuts all the time and what’s the big deal really? 

Dan knows he’s right, just like he knows his nervousness is dumb. 

A part of him remembers to even be a little proud. Phil Lester, _his_ Phil Lester, the very same who needed to be talked up for years to let go of an emo fringe he’d long outgrown, is willing to fully butcher his hair with low impulse and some thinning scissors. 

But that doesn’t mean Dan can just stand by and watch. Phil is an adult. He can make these unfathomable aesthetic choices all he likes. And Dan can hide upstairs until the destruction of long locks he loves to run his fingers through is over. 

*

Dan hears Phil’s voice calling for him. He makes his way over to the filming setup expecting to see a warzone, and he’s not far off. The amount of hair on the floor is obscene— there’s no way that all came from Phil’s head! He’s not actually bald, so he showed _some_ restraint, but the pile of blue black shorn pieces would indicate otherwise. 

He tries to keep a neutral face when Phil smiles nervously and says, “How’d I do?” 

That’s an unfair question, Dan thinks. What’s he supposed to say? How honest is he supposed to be? 

“A better job than my mum did on Colin,” he says. It seems like a safe enough non-answer. 

Phil’s smile is still nervous. Dan figures he’s probably still in shock. He asks Dan if he’d film some shots of the back of his head for the video. Dan grabs Phil’s phone and starts recording. 

It’s a mess. It’s patchy and uneven and loose bits are still falling out when Dan brushes through. He’s not even surprised. This is what he expected when Phil, without an ounce of preparation or research or depth perception started chopping. 

There’s familiarity when he gets his fingers in the longer bits. It’s still that soft hair he’s known for over a decade now. Even the patchy buzzed bits feel familiar if Dan thinks back on experiments with shaved sides they’d both tried. 

That helps. It feels less like a tragedy. 

*

After Phil showers and sits to begin editing his video, he nudges his foot into Dan’s knee and asks if he’ll order dinner. Dan doesn’t hear him. He’s looking at Phil’s hair still. 

Somehow the last shred of hope he’d been holding onto, the idea of Phil showering and the cut looking less drastic afterwards, isn’t as much of a disappointment as it ought to be. Nothing has changed, Phil still looks like he was botched by the straight razor machine in _Casper_. But he’s sitting on the sofa in emoji pyjamas rolled up to the knee because of the late May heat and his _vibes_ t-shirt, his blue eyes brightened by the amber glow of the room as the sun begins to set, and a sleepiness around his smile from having been on for the camera today. 

His hair is bad. And he’s Phil. 

They’re both true and Dan’s thrilled by it. 

“Dan?” Phil nudges his knee again. 

“Yeah?” he laughs, brought back from his own thoughts. 

“Is it _that_ bad?” Phil brings a hand up to what’s left of his quiff. 

Dan moves to the other end of the sofa and gives Phil a kiss. He brings Phil’s hand away from his hair and kisses that too. “It’s fine,” he says.

“Really?”

“Really,” Dan nods. He brings a finger to the shaved and gone sideburns. “Can I just… would you let me clean it up a bit?” 

Phil lets out a loud laugh Dan suspects he’d been holding in. “Sure, Mr. Symmetry, but can we eat first?” 

“Of course,” Dan grins, “I gotta watch some tutorials anyway before I attempt it. Bright side is I guess I couldn’t make it any worse.” 

Phil pokes him in the ribs. “If you shave it all off, I’m getting a divorce,” he threatens with a crinkled smile.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading— come say hi on [tumblr](http://yikesola.tumblr.com/post/620286134805823488/more-than-a-trim) !


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